• Well, here’s a frat boy’s literal wet dream: A big rig carrying cases of Bud Light flipped over on a Sacramento highway, sending beer everywhere. [CBS Local Sacramento]
• The Journal hasn’t gotten their Chez Panisse anniversary coverage hangover yet, and writes a piece about the upstairs Café and how consistently busy they are, even at lunch. [WSJ - subscription required]
• Anthony Bourdain is going to be serving as editor and publisher, for a division HarperCollins, trend-spotting three to five new authors per year. [NYT via Grub Street NY]
• Police in China have seized 100 tons of potentially harmful “gutter oil” (recycled cooking oil) from a plant that claimed to be recycling the oil for fuel but was really just selling it back to people for cooking. [AP/SFGate]
• Ruth Reichl on the next big topic in food politics: “The real issue is those people out there in the fields, surrounded by pesticides for their entire lives … The real issue is the fact that agriculture in this country can’t operate without illegal labor.” Come to think of it, neither can restaurants. [Inside Scoop/SF Gate]
• Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the country has spent $3.4 billion protecting the food supply, a fragmented system where “nobody’s in charge,” as one official says. [AP]
• No doubt in a last desperate effort to at least make someone pay for music, record labels have become way more vigilant in the past few years about forcing restaurants to pay for background music. No word about whether they crack down on hold music. [HuffPo]
